Investigation of KIR genes in Iranian Multiple Sclerosis patients

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Natural killer cell receptors (KIRs) bind to different MHC class I molecules activating NK cells to produce immune-regulatory cytokines.Material and methods:Genomic DNA of 44 MS patients and 82 controls was extracted from blood samples and Copy number variation of the KIR gene receptor was determined by Real time quantitative PCR (qPCR). Pearson Chi-squared test, fisher s exact test and Odds ratio were carried out for statistical analysis.Results44 MS patients and 82 control blood samples were collected from Mashhad, Ahvaz cities of Iran. Among six haplotypes, the most frequent haplotype in patients and controls were haplotype 1 (3DL3,2DL3,2DP1,2DL1,3DP1,2DL4,3DL1E4,3DL1E9,2DS4TOTAL,2DS4WT,3DL2E4,3DL2E9) with 70.5% and 62.2% respectively. Comparison of the frequency of KIR A, B haplotype alleles showed that the frequency of A haplotype (73%) is higher than the B haplotype. The statistical analysis of KIR A haplotype showed that there was no significant association between KIR A haplotype and MS disease The statistical analysis showed that haplotype 2 (3DL3,2DL3,2DP1,2DL1,3DP1,2DL4,3DS1,2DL5,2DS5,2DS1,3DL2E4,3DL2E9) is strongly associated with MS (P value by Fisher s exact test was 460 x 10-6 and the Odds ratio was 0.890(95% CI: 0.844-0.939). No significant statistical association was determined between KIR genes and MS in this study.ConclusionThe KIR inhibitory receptors were more frequent than KIR activating receptors in this study. This study is the first study to investigate the association between KIRs genes and haplotypes with MS in Iranian population.